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The writing was on the wall

Former Gloucestershire captain Alex Gidman on realising the end of his career was nigh, and how chronicling his feelings helped him cope with the sense of loss

Alex Gidman

Tossing and turning in my hotel room in Canterbury in late August 2014, getting more and more frustrated with myself for not being able to get to sleep.

We had a huge game the next day, a Royal London One-Day Cup quarter-final in which I was the stand-in captain for the club I love, Gloucestershire. I flicked on the bedside light and grabbed the pen and paper that was there and wrote, “I’m angry, frustrated and sad”. I turned the light off and went to sleep in a flash. It was almost like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders, just by simply writing a few words down on a piece of paper.

Without knowing it at the time, that night was the start of the end of my career. The following days after I wrote those words I spent hours trying to figure out what I meant – why did I write them?

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